Hardly anything might seem more audacious than to deny that the
arch of Constantine was built in honor of that emperor; yet the
really amazing thing is our failure to attend to the numerous hints
that this arch had existed long before Constantine. Artists and
archaeologists have always been un-able to explain how an architect
of the decadent age of Constantine could have given to this arch
its marvellous proportions and silhouette, which set it above all
other arches, even those of the golden age (Fig. 1). Historians
have been puzzled by the silence of that early catalogue of the
buildings at Rome, the Notitia, issued before Constantine's death
(334 A.D.), which assigns to Constantine, apparently, only the
Janus in the Forum Boarium. The same Notitia increases the mystery
by speaking of an Arcus Novus on the Via Lata, which can only be
the arch of Diocletian, dedicated in 303. If in 334 the arch of 303
was still the latest of triumphal arches, how could an arch have
been built to Constantine in 315 ?
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